Matthews, Hunter and Quinlan hit HRs for Angels in 6-5 win over Orioles
Associated Press | May 4, 08 5:38 PM CDT in
Sports
Gary Matthews Jr. and Torii Hunter homered in the first inning and Los Angeles beat the Baltimore Orioles 6-5 on Sunday despite a poor outing by still-unbeaten Joe Saunders.
Saunders (6-0) threw 85 pitches over five innings in the shortest of his seven starts. The left-hander allowed four runs and a career-high 12 hits, struck out one and walked none. In his previous outing last Tuesday, he gave up four hits over eight innings in a 2-0 win against Oakland.
Saunders became the third pitcher in Angels history to start a season 6-0 or better, joining teammate Jered Weaver (9-0 in 2006) and Aaron Sele (7-0 in 2004). Ervin Santana gets a chance to join that list on Monday night at Kansas City.
Robb Quinlan added his first home run at Angel Stadium in almost a year,
Kevin Millar's second RBI single of the game reduced the Angels' lead to 6-4 in the fifth, and Nick Markakis greeted reliever Justin Speier with a leadoff homer in the seventh on the right-hander's first pitch of the game.
Scot Shields pitched a perfect eighth and Francisco Rodriguez got three outs for his major league-leading 13th save. He got help from catcher Jeff Mathis, who picked Brian Roberts off first base for the second out in the inning.
Saunders gave up two runs and five hits in the first, but the Orioles helped him out by running themselves into a pair of outs during the rally. Roberts led off with a double, tried to steal third one out later and was erased by Mathis. It was only the third time Roberts was thrown out in 37 attempted steals of third since the start of the 2006 season.
The next three Baltimore batters singled, with Millar and Ramon Hernandez each driving home a run. But Hernandez coasted into second base after his drive struck the left field fence on the fly, and Garret Anderson threw him out to end the inning.
The Angels came back with four in the bottom half against Steve Trachsel (1-4), who lost his fourth straight decision.
Matthews, batting leadoff for the first time this season with Chone Figgins nursing a sore right hamstring, drove a 3-2 pitch directly over the 400-foot marker in center field for his fifth home run.
Hunter made it 4-2 with his fifth homer and first since April 7. He drove a 1-1 pitch into the second tier of the left field bullpen after a single by Vladimir Guerrero and an opposite-field double by Casey Kotchman that landed just inside the left field line. Guerrero's hit ended an 0-for-15 drought _ the first time he had gone hitless in five consecutive games in his career.
Melvin Mora led off the third with his fourth homer, but Quinlan responded in the bottom half with a two-run shot that gave the Angels a 6-3 lead. The homer was his first since June 10, 2007 at St. Louis.
Trachsel allowed six runs and seven hits in three-plus innings, second straight start in which the right-hander failed to make it through the fourth inning. He has surrendered 20 earned runs in 21 innings over his last five starts after beating Seattle in his season debut.
Notes:@ This was the first time Matthews and Hunter have homered in the same game as teammates, Hunter displaced Matthews as the Angels' regular center fielder when he signed a five-year, $90 million contract on Nov. 21. This was the seventh game in which Matthews was the DH. ... Roberts stole third 19 times in 20 attempts last season, and was 12-for-12 in 2006. This year he is 3-for-5.
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